As mobile apps proliferate, the cloud has emerged as a key enabler of this growth. Cloud delivery of mobile apps accelerates time to value and speed to market, making availability of new capabilities instantaneous. A recent study from IBM revealed that while only 24 percent of telecom survey respondents currently use cloud for sweeping innovation, in two years more than half (57 percent) of them plan to rely on cloud for business model innovation.

By offering IBM Worklight on the Deutsche Telekom cloud via Developer Garden, SMBs that traditionally may not have the resources to obtain enterprise-grade mobile tools will now be able to easily consume these technologies as a service without long term investment or planning.

The new service combines the strengths of Deutsche Telekom's Developer Garden with Worklight, IBM's app development platform, to provide organizations with instant access to Deutsche Telekom's Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and communication services and expertise. Developer Garden users will be able to quickly access IBM Worklight capabilities to efficiently develop, run and manage HTML5, hybrid and native apps that combine Deutsche Telekom's communication features such as speech-driven Interactive Voice Response (IVR), voice mashups and Short Message Service (SMS).

For example, a retailer can increase customer retention by integrating geo-location capabilities from IBM Worklight and Deutsche Telekom's SMS API into its mobile app. A customer can opt in for retailers to be notified when they are in close proximity to a physical store and receive customized promotions for same-day in-store purchases. A hotel can also improve customer service by using these same opt in capabilities to be alerted when premium guests are nearby. This mobile feature can minimize a guest's time waiting in long check-in lines, ensure their room is ready and specific requests are met to enhance their experience with the brand.

"The collaboration between IBM and Deutsche Telekom Developer Garden enables us to offer new business models in the area of mobile app development and to unlock new value for our customers," said Rainer Deutschmann, senior vice president, Core Telco Products of Deutsche Telekom. "In addition, the data will be securely hosted on Deutsche Telekom's servers in Germany and thus be subject to the strict German data protection provisions adding a layer of security and assurance to developers and enterprises working in the cloud."

"The partnership with Developer Garden at Deutsche Telekom will enable us to offer IBM Worklight on their cloud to a whole new market in Europe," said Marie Wieck, general manager, IBM Application & Integration Middleware. "Small to medium-sized businesses will now have access to the IBM MobileFirst enterprise grade mobile platform to help them lower development costs, introduce mobile apps to the market more quickly and operate them more reliably."

About Developer GardenDeveloper Garden is the developer ecosystem of Deutsche Telekom. Developer Garden offers a broad product portfolio of software components, developer tools and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for smart and efficient software development. Built on a network of strong global alliances, Developer Garden addresses the world-wide software development community.

About IBM MobileFirstAs the first new technology platform for business to emerge since the World Wide Web, mobile computing represents one of the greatest opportunities for organizations to expand their business. Based on nearly 1,000 customer engagements, more than 10 mobile-related acquisitions in the last four years, a team of thousands of mobile experts and 270 patents in wireless innovations, IBM MobileFirst provides the key elements of an application and data platform with the management, security and analytics capabilities needed for the enterprise.